Aristotle states that there are two human inventions which may be considered more
difficult than any others: the art of government and the art of education (Gutman, 1987).
This article intends to build underlying understanding in the art of education in terms of
School-to-Work (STW) movement among policy makers by employing the cases of the
US. The STW initiatives presented in the article mainly reflect the US educational system.
The article will present four main focuses: the potential problems in the US educational
system, the philosophical background of the STW initiative, the accountability
enhancement through STW and policy concerned issues for the impediments of the
initiative
The potential problems in the United State educational system
The United State educational system is similar to other countries educational
systems in a sense that it is characterized by enormous administrative complexity.
According to United States of America: Country Note by OECD (1997), the US
educational system can be described both diverse and homogeneous.
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The author is a doctoral student pursuing a Ph.D. in an International/Intercultural
Development Education program and a minor in Measurement and Statistics at the
department of educational foundation and policy studies, Florida State University.
In terms of diversity, 1995-96 statistic shows that he system comprises 15,000
public agencies serving to over 51 million U.S. students. The data also indicates those
there are14.4 million students in 3,706 institutions. A third of higher education students are
in the private institutions. Moreover, educational management is diverse and unique from
state to state.
In terms of homogeneity, OECD points out that while standards and curricula are a
state and local control, a few text book publishers likely dominate the market and the
classrooms especially at pre-college level. The limitation is also on standardized tests
which are used nation-wide have same interpretation and presentation of basic content and
skill.
The OECD report makes a few remarks of the pitfalls of the U.S. educational
system concerning secondary level vocational and technical education, high school
graduation, higher education, funding, the experience of minority groups, and the American
labor market.
In short, for secondary level vocational and technical education, there has been a
steady decline in the proportion of students who identify themselves as following a
vocational track in high school. Regarding high school graduation, the graduation rate was
higher because of GED (General Education Development) recipients. There also is a
dramatic increase in the number taking Advanced Placement examinations in the final two
years of high school. With respect to higher education, many students do not complete a
four-year program, or do so only a very long period of time. Apprenticeship does not play a
large role in the US training system, with 1.5% of adult workforce, but rather less than 1%
of 19 year olds are in apprenticeship program. In terms of funding, the funding patterns of
the percentage of revenue from tuition have increased since 1975. It is noteworthy that
there has been a huge increase in the volume of aid going to students rather than to
institutions. Relating to the experience of minority groups, the difference in achievement
levels between certain minority groups and the population as a whole are major and stable
enough to be a continuing cause of concern. In addition, the unemployment rate of
Hispanics is also higher than that of whites and even higher for blacks. Lastly, young
people experience a succession of short-term job as they enter the labor market.
Although the potential pitfalls mentioned in the previous paragraphs, School to
Work opportunities was initiated in 1994. With respect to establish both the framework
and opportunity, states and local communities provide designs and implement different
strategies to support students in their mastery of academic and technical skills, and in
preparation for further education and careers. Empirical evidence from early STW in
Philadelphia and Boston show the positive impact on teaching and learning and benefit to
business (Olson, 1997; Alongi, 1998; Steinberg, 1998).
The philosophical background for School-to-Work initiative
School-to-Work, the equivalent term is School-to-Career, is a new technical term in
the art of education from the last decade. However, John Dewey’s philosophy underlies the
work. Grubb (1995) focuses on Dewey’s belief that the only adequate training for
occupations is training through occupation. Olson (1997) also refers to Dewey’s work in
her book, showing that Dewey strongly supports the curriculum that reflect the urgent
realities of contemporary life especially engaging young children in projects and in manual
activities. Furthermore, Steingberg (1998) explicitly states Dewey’s perspective toward
STW that education through occupations encompasses broadly purposive education in
order to ultimately developing the full range of students’ capacities to fulfilling lives.
Regarding engaging young children in projects and in manual activities, Hughes et al
(1999) claims STW as work-based learning referring Bloom’s taxonomy that reinforcement
can be achieved through work activities calling for knowledge and application.
STW is perceived as progressive education as well as the constructivists views the
initiative as a school restructuring movement. Young people can learn more effectively if
they take an active part in the education process rather than being passive recipients of
information transmitted from the teachers (Bailey and Merritt, 1997). Writing process
reforms, poject-based learning, authentic assessment, cooperative learning, communities
service learning and multicultural teaching have emerged as constructivist pieces of
pedagogical reform in STW(Riordan, 1998)
Revealing Dewey’s perspective on education and the understanding from
constructivists can gear policy makers’ intention to cautiously analyze and synthesis the
current educational system so that alternative choices can be provided to achieve ultimate
purpose of education. Surprisingly, the society embraces the diversity and strives to
homogeneity in some sense. The US is a fine example. There is growing recognition that
one-size-fits-all education does not fit everyone, and that schooling must be adaptive to the
changing needs of students and society (Ravitch and Viteritti, 1997).
Enhancing the accountability level through School-to-Work initiative
The accountability encompasses the notion of responsibility and social expectation
(Elmore, 1997). Accountability systems outlines consequences for the desirable and
understandable performance in the manner of clearly measurable productive terms
(Lessinger,1973; Herman, 1979; Lanza, 1979).
Community and business involvement is always a desirable way to establish the
awareness of accountability. Steinberg (1998) reminds us that teachers and schools can not
afford to ignore the issue of accountability and assessment. Rosenbaum and Binder (1997)
point out that some employers do have clear needs for specific academic, skills which are
more common among employers who express the need for skilled work.
Moreover, Bailey and Merritt (1997) suggested the efforts to develop standards will
link educators and employers and better define the skills and related curricula needed by
industries and occupations. Their points were well taken by Hughes et al (1999). Hughes et
al. supported that STW can facilitate skill-oriented knowledge-use as the students will be
held accountable for performing the tasks for which they are doing
Obviously, the accountability would not occur simply by setting standards,
assessing these standards, and reporting the accomplishment of students (Daling-
Hammond, 1997; Roeber, 1999). Steinberg (1998) mentions the Oakland Heath Academy
as a good example of how student complete advance course in human physiology and
bioscience by participating STW program instead of simply meeting minimum
requirements in science. In the light of enhancing the accountability level through STW,
the basic challenge is documenting what students learn. The need to collect a set of
exemplary student projects, to show to students and public, and to new teachers or policy
makers is to address accountability concerns. In addition, teachers, student, parents and
administrators have more measurable and reliable benchmarks to hold accountable for
individual and school levels based on STW initiative.
Policy concerned issue for the impediments of the initiative
School to work is a recurring challenge for all educators if we have a faith in John
Dewey’s belief. Economical and social development demands more flexible educational
systems. Politically, the trend must serve well in terms of democracy and is culturally
welcomed. Somehow, policy may not well describe all interests toward STW. The lesson
from the US focusing on gaining accountability from STW can provide some policy
concerns: business involvement, school autonomy, and state governance.
Business Involvement
The US has implemented STW program for almost a decade. One common
characteristic appears across the sites that the diversity and unique process in the countries.
For instance, in Boston, five main projects were created. In total, 1,428 business
organizations have been involved in the programs. School to work pave the ways for
helping employers understand how the art of education fit together with business and plan
their participation more holistically (Alongi, 1998). I personally agree with Oslon’s (1997)
suggestion that STW can be accomplished through a sustained and focused partnership
between educator and employers.
School autonomy
Besides STW lays out some feasible guideline for business and school involvement,
schools or organizations themselves can also gain their autonomy. School can situate
learning in the context of community or work-based problems (Vickers, 1998). Tulsa case
allows representatives from all of the key stakeholders to participate in structuring a strong
work-based component. It shows that working with industry, educators could design a new
curriculum that was co-taught by a team of academic and occupational teachers. Another
fine example in the US is Austin (Olson, 1997), Texas allows the organizations operate the
STW according to the nature of its city is the major strategy in the local participation.
Austin and Tulsa cases keep us in mind that all stakeholders must have a voice if it is to be
true partnership. In addition, schools are allowed to exercise their autonomy effectively and
responsively.
State Governance
The US case shows how the federal government facilitates STW initiative. Funding
the program and technical assistance are provided through the central government,
consequently, measurement of progress (Alongi, 1998) remains a core element of the
partnership between employer community and the school system. Although States may
freely implementing STW program, the program has some growing pain (Oslon, 1997)
because the rapid start-up cause a vague idea of what the initial group of work-site mentors
supposed to do.
I would like to also mention Dewey’s statements about experience and education in
this final paragraph. The main purpose of education is to prepare the young for future
responsibilities and for success in life, by means of acquisition of the organized bodies of
information and prepared forms of skills that comprehend the material of instruction
(Dewey, 1938). Using the US educational system as an example, Dewey’s philosophy is
still promising. The notion of accountability is also still withheld. The light of success does
not depend only on the governance issue but strong business involvement as well as
suitable degree of the school autonomy. No matter do states have variety of the practical
programs, gaining more intensive workplace experience connected to classroom is the heart
of STW still.
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Implementation of the School-to-Work Opportunities Act
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